Word-whore. I write 'em. I talk 'em. Information, politics, media, and the cybers. I drink. I use bad words. All publication is a political act. All communication is propaganda. All art is pornography. All business is personal. All hail Eris! Vive les poissons rouges sauvages!
A ship holding people prisoner is not a prison ship. Senator Bill Heffernan goes on record with a self-description. And there’s some lifestyle advice from QUT.
In this podcast, there’s talk of any number of things which should cause worry.
Continue reading “The 9pm Orgy of Confusion”
Prime Minister Tony Abbott points to the enemy, and to the difficult road ahead. What road is that? Foreign Minister Julie Bishop gives a clue.
We also determine the three key differences between Philip Ruddock and a mechanical duck.
We award elephant stamps for people who have been exceptional in the category of thinking to the authorities of Summerville, South Carolina, for arresting a 9th-grader for an alleged dinosaur killing (pictured above), and the 20-year-old man arrested at Riverwood on 26 August.
And we introduce a new segment, Ubergasm, exploring the work of our favourite libertarian disruptors. Today we hear about Uber’s playbook for sabotaging Lyft and a tweet from PR columnist Ed Zitron.
Continue reading “The 9pm Road to War”“The only difference between a Nation State and a Mafioso protection racket is the letterhead and the rituals — and the series of concessions, hard-won over eight centuries, that we call ‘civil liberties’.”
That’s the start of my guest post today for Electronic Frontiers Australia, entitled Without civil liberties, government is just a criminal racket.
It’s an essay that combines some thoughts about the constant battle for civil liberties with my reaction to the video posted by Wikileaks at Collateral Murder. It’s footage from 2007 showing a Reuters photojournalist and his driver and others being killed by US helicopter gunfire in Baghdad. It’s footage the US Department of Defence didn’t want you to see. It’s challenging to watch.
This is one of a series of guest posts for the EFA as part of their current fundraising campaign.
The cat vomited this morning. Again. Artemis has this habit of gorging her food and then, five minutes later, throwing up wherever she’s standing.
Today it was a projectile effort from the heights of the TV stand, a reddish-brown spatter right across the living room floor.
Remember that last time you threw up? How the acrid stomach acids burnt your throat and mouth? How it felt like it was surging up into the back of your nose? It’s just like that. Freshly warm and mixed with the reek of cheap fish.
You can’t help but get it on your hands as you wipe it up.
I’ll bet just the thought of that smell is causing tightness in your sinuses, clenching in your throat.
Wiping up cat vomit first thing in the morning is rather unpleasant, no?
If wiping up cat vomit is the worst you have to think about today, then you’re one of the luckiest bastards on this planet. It’s not a particularly demanding sacrifice to make in return for some furry companionship.
Today is, of course, Anzac Day, our national memorial for those who’ve made the ultimate sacrifice for our country, and that other country.
Continue reading “Anzac Day 2009: Sacrifice”I noticed this blogging meme over at Quatrefoil’s place and thought I’d give it a try. The results are surprising.
And the sentence is:
“Sensitive site exploitation will continue.”
That sentence doesn’t make a lot of sense by itself, but the next one adds all the context you need:
So far there had been no WMD stockpiles found.
The book is State of Denial: Bush At War, Part III by investigative journalist Bob Woodward. It’s been months since I read it but for some reason it’s still on my desk.
This afternoon the BBC reports that unnamed “US officials” have evidence that North Korea was helping Syria build a nuclear reactor. Here we go again. I think I might listen to some classic Detroit techno instead.
Of all the writing about the 5th anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq, one of the more interesting pieces is by Mary Ellen O’Connell (pictured) of Notre Dame Law School. In Learning from the Iraq War: The Wisdom of International Law, she argues that the most tangible lesson is that the US ignores international law at its peril.
Going into Iraq, we ignored the UN Charter, which prohibits the use of force except in self-defense or with Security Council authorization. Once in Iraq, we ignored the Hague Regulations, requiring us to put a stop to looting and to make only necessary changes to local law and government. We ignored the Geneva Conventions, which prohibit secret detention and abuse of prisoners of the kind we saw at Abu Ghraib.
The talk on Iraq is all about what went wrong, whether the surge is working, and when we can get out. We hear virtually nothing about international law and look set to repeat our mistakes. Violating the law has cost our nation and Iraq dearly. It has denied us the guidance of rules based on long experience and moral consensus. We have lost standing in the world, a literal fortune, and precious lives. Rather than internalizing the lesson of law violation in Iraq, we continue to defy the law in serious and self-destructive ways.
At some point, sooner or later, America needs to understand that international law does indeed apply to everyone — including America. Otherwise any US action against any other nation breaking the law is nothing but hypocrisy. (Hat-tip to Blog Them Out of the Stone Age.)